The #mediawikiIRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel (on freenode.net) is the best form of real-time communication for discussion of or questions about the MediaWiki software. You will often find developers or other knowledgeable users who will be happy to answer any technical questions you may have. You can use this link to connect to the channel from your browser.. There are also many software packages you can use to get on irc. Generally dedicated software packages give a better user experiance than webchat.

If you're not sure what channel to use, or where to ask a question, ask at #mediawiki. If you're in the wrong place, someone will direct you to the best place to ask your question.

Links

#wikimedia-dev

This channel contains updates about bugs and code commits. Sometimes developers discuss feature development in this channel, although often they use other channels such as #mediawiki due to the amount of bot activity in this channel.

Updates from many of the repositories are posted (and usually discussed) here, thanks to the grrrit-wm bot.

#wikimedia-office

This channel is often used for public meetings. This includes both technical meetings such as those of the Wikimedia Technical Committee (Wednesday at 2pm PST/PDT) and non-technical meetings. Usually technical meetings will be announced beforehand on wikitech-l mailing list

#wikimedia-tech

This channel is primarily meant for getting technical help on Wikimedia projects. The participants will also answer technical questions about MediaWiki in general. This is also the site of the Technical Advice IRC Meeting (Wednesday 4-5 pm UTC), which is a meeting where people can ask questions about MediaWiki development.

Other channels

See IRC/Channels on Meta-Wiki for other channels used by the community and developers.

Don't worry too much about choosing the right channel. If you're not sure, just use #mediawiki.

Connecting to IRC

In order to connect to an IRC channel, you need to have an installed IRC client or to use a Web connection to IRC. If you already have an IRC client installed, and your browser is correctly set up, then clicking the direct links previously mentioned should automatically take you straight to the appropriate channel. If you need help finding, installing or configuring an IRC client, then here are some links that may help: